WASHINGTON – The revelation in late November that a Chinese researcher had edited genes in human embryos and then implanted them in a woman was "a train wreck of a thing to do," said an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

When Archbishop Fergus P. McEvay started the St. Elizabeth Nurses in Toronto 110 years ago, it was all about the beginning of life. Four qualified midwives were stationed in the city’s poorer neighbourhoods to deliver babies, ensure the mother’s health and then get those babies baptized.

A private member’s bill that would decriminalize the purchase of sperm, eggs and rent-a-womb surrogacy would open the door to exploitation of poor women and legalize a form of child trafficking, according to a member of the 1990s Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies.

The pipette appears on the screen and sucks up a dot, which is actually human sperm that has been genetically altered. Then the small laboratory tool pierces the membrane of a human egg, releases the sperm, “and you have changed the genetic destiny of that embryo,” notes television host Bill Whitaker. “Yes, we believe so,” nods scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov.

VATICAN – Love is a miraculous force that helps the parents of sick children focus on the beauty of their children's lives and keeps the flame of hope for a cure alive, Pope Francis told an Italian couple and a group of their supporters.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, described a physician’s career this way: “Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous and judgment difficult.” So, who in their right mind would want to be a doctor?